Monday

» Should the U.S. House of Representatives be expressing itself on this now?

» Was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's determination to bring this to a vote, knowing it risked provoking Turkey into withdrawing crucial assistance to U.S. troops in Iraq, a conscious or unconscious attempt to sabotage the U.S. war effort?

That from 1 million to 1.5million Armenians were brutally and systematically massacred starting in 1915 in a deliberate genocidal campaign is a matter of historical record.

If you really want to deepen and broaden awareness of that historical record, you should support the establishment of the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial in Washington.

To pass a declarative resolution in the House of Representatives in the middle of a war in which we're inordinately dependent on Turkey is the height of irresponsibility.

The atrocities happened 90 years ago. Not a single living Turk younger than 102 is in any way culpable.

Even Mesrob Mutafyan, patriarch of the Armenian community in Turkey, has stated his community opposes the resolution, correctly calling it the result of domestic U.S. politics.

Turkey already is massing troops near the Iraq border, threatening a campaign against Kurdish rebels that could destabilize the one stable front in Iraq.

The same House of Representatives that has been complaining loudly about the lack of armored vehicles for our troops is blithely jeopardizing relations with the country through which 95 percent of the new heavily armored vehicles are transiting on the way to saving American lives in Iraq.

For what? To feel morally clean?

How does this work? Pelosi, of San Francisco, says: "Genocide still exists, and we saw it in Rwanda. We see it now in Darfur."

Precisely. What exactly is she doing about Darfur? Nothing. Pronouncing yourself on a genocide committed 90 years ago by an empire that no longer exists is Pelosi's demonstration of seriousness about existing, ongoing genocide?

The Democratic Party she's leading in the House has been trying for months to force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq that very well could lead to genocidal civil war. This prospect apparently has not deterred her in the least.

"Friends don't let friends commit crimes against humanity," said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that passed the Armenian genocide resolution.

This must rank among the most stupid statements ever uttered by a member of Congress, admittedly a very high bar.

Does Smith know anything about the history of the Armenian genocide? Of the role played by Henry Morgenthau? As U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Morgenthau tried desperately to intervene on behalf of the Armenians.

It was his consular officials deep in Turkey who (together with missionaries) brought out news of the genocide.

It was Morgenthau who helped tell the world about it in his writings. Near East Relief, the U.S. charity strongly backed by President Wilson and the Congress, raised and distributed an astonishing $117 million in food, clothing and other vital assistance that, historian Howard Sachar wrote, "quite literally kept an entire nation alive."

So much for the U.S. letting friends commit crimes against humanity. At the time, the Ottomans weren't friends. They were an enemy power in World War I, allied with Germany.

Now the Turks are friends, giving us indispensable logistical help in our war against today's premier perpetrators of crimes against humanity - al-Qaida in Iraq and Afghanistan.